How to Read Music

The picture to your left represents what the bass clef symbol looks like. This is also known as the F clef because the curly part wraps around the F and the colon is also surrounding the F line. You will find bass clef on the lower staff of sheet music whereas the upper staff is called the treble clef.

While in beginning piano, you may find that you will almost always play the bass clef with your left hand, this can alternate later on when you progress through music in a higher difficulty. When you see a note that is on the bass clef, that note will be under middle C. When you see a note on the treble clef, that note will be above middle C.

Bass Clef Notes

When you look at the bass clef, the bottom line is always a G. Where would this be on the piano? Lets take a look:

If you are standing at middle C, go one octave lower (the next c key down) and then go the the next G. This is where the first bottom line of the bass clef starts.

Where do the notes go from there? Well, if you have a note at G (which is the bottom line), and then you move up… then you will go to A, represented right above the G in the space. The next line would be a B. The space above would be a C, so on and so forth.

Lets bring this all together to where you can see where everything falls into place for the bass clef.

You see how it just climbs up the piano? Unless otherwise noted, all the notes are the white keys on the piano. The only time you would be using black keys is if you were playing a song with sharps and flats.

There are ways to notate when notes are above middle C on the bass clef as there are ways to notate notes below middle C on the treble clef. Lets take a look at an example:

Look at the notes above. You see how the first note is an A (which is below middle C) and then the top note is an E (which is actually above middle C). This is played together with your left hand. Lets look at the second note, you see G sharp on the bottom and E again on the top. The G sharp would be below middle C on the piano, however, the E would be above middle C! Notice how when you climb higher and higher, you need to add more lines to notate notes above middle C? Technically, you can go on forever but you won’t see that too often in music books.

If you need more explanation, check out this YouTube video that I made giving a more visual explanation:

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